This invention relates to a portable tool for cutting wiped-lead fillets from a sleeve over a splice on telephone cables and the like.
It is common practice to splice sections of underground cable at convenient places accessible through a manhole. To protect the cable splice, a metal sleeve is placed over the cable sheath or conduit which is discontinuous at the splice. The sleeve is long enough to overlap the ends of the cable sheath or conduit through which the conductors run. To seal the cable sheath or conduit from moisture and corrosive gases, the ends of the sleeve are wiped with lead to form a fillet around each end.
Whenever repairs are required in a cable, it is necessary to remove the sleeve over the splice, but first the fillets must be removed. The usual method for removing the fillets requires a torch. However, that method cannot be used safely to remove the fillets in a manhole due to the possibility that explosive gases will be present in the manhole. Consequently, the practice has been to remove wiped-lead fillets in a manhole by a technique which requires the use of melted lead to "wash" the wiped lead away. That requires that a worker outside the manhole heat a quantity of lead and pass it to a worker in the manhole. This method of unwiping lead is too time consuming, difficult, and not entirely free of danger since it requires workers to handle large quantities of molten lead.